Data centres are ‘wasting energy’ in cooling IT equipment

Data centres are spending unnecessary amounts on cooled air and producing four times more cooled air than is needed to limit the impact on data integrity or loss of functionality according to a leading technical cleaning and data centre healthcare business, 8 Solutions.

David Hogg, Managing Director at 8 Solutions, believes that despite rising energy costs, not enough is being done to manage airflow correctly: “As new IT equipment is added to data centres, the solution to maintain the correct temperature is usually to increase the cooling by adding further cold supply air capacity to the environments,” he says.

“But most data centres have sufficient capacity available – it’s simply that too much of the current cold air is being wasted, and, critically, not enough is being directed to the IT kit.”

David’s comments follow an analysis of the airflow audits of more than a dozen data centres over the last 12 months carried out by 8 Solutions, and a report last year by Upsite Technologies in the US that identified 45 data centres that were producing more cooled air than was needed.

“The IT equipment in a data centre should be kept at a temperature of 27C degrees in order to run at optimum levels, but our audits suggest that many data centres are producing nearly four times more cooled airflow than is needed,” David adds.

Unsealed firewalls that allow cooled air to escape and unsealed cable cut outs releasing cooled air into inappropriate areas are partly to blame, as is the poor management of hot/cold aisles, including having grilles located within the hot aisles, and IT equipment installed in reverse. Other factors include an inappropriate mix of cooled air and hot air and an incorrect airflow balance between supply (installed capacity) and demand (IT equipment).

“With better airflow management, data centres can make average energy savings of £48 metre sq per annum,” David continues. “A typical 500m sq data centre can save £24,000 per annum and show an improvement in power usage effectiveness (PUE). This gives a return on investment of between 12-24 months.”

David says that even something as simple as installing blanking panels as a first line of defence can have an immediate impact on controlling air temperatures. “In tests recently conducted by DataSite in the US, it found that by installing 1200u of blanking panels for a 400sq/ft of raised floor, it realised a drop in temperature that enabled one of the air conditioning units to be switched off, and achieved an ROI in only four months,” he adds.